Paul George

Ah, the almost-studlies. The “still can’t quite miss, but you can start reaching round.” …Almost sounds like I said reach around…

This is where the sommeliers really can knock their drafts out of the park – it’s all about the pairings. You don’t serve red wine with fish, you cro-magnon! But what’s great about fantasy hoops as opposed to a pretentious French restaurant is there’s very few pairings that can go wrong. I mean your first rounder is awesome and your second rounder awesome with it! I know a lot of people like the FT punt builds, but really the only pairing I can’t see doing is going big-big. There’s a ton of FT-punt bigs littered through the first 4-5 rounds, so I think you can still punt, but start with a LeBron James/Draymond Green pair, then PG/C in 3/4. I’m sure Slim and I will work on more culinary pairings as we go through the ranks and do some mocks on the Podcast, as we attempt to put together the best fine dining experience… I just wanna avoid the friggin’ snails! Here’s the Top 20 for the 2015-16 Fantasy Basketball Season.

“Dude, you can’t make a title caps to make the pun work, or else it’s a stupid lazy joke!” Well, ya know I’m pretty effin’ rusty out here catching back up with Summer Ball and this final batch of free agency moves! I’m as old and as rusty as Deron Williams, who completed his buyout with the Nets, turned it into piles of gold he buried in his backyard, and will be eating Mulligan’s steak with Mark Cuban. The rich stay rich, just with the richer! Wait, did that make any sense? While D-Will has just as much risk as an active Claymore mine sitting on your desk (and giving it a fourth grade girl), I think I might actually buy in a bit. He’s in a steady decline, but when looking at his numbers last year, it’s easy to forget he came off the bench for a bit – and his bench numbers were horrific. As a starter he was 14.3/3.6/7.1 with a steal per and only 2.4 TO. And interestingly enough – nearly 33 minutes a game while staying [mostly] healthy! Must be the new bacon and eggs diet. He shot pretty horrible – sub 40% as a starter – but it was 39.6% vs. 32.3% as a sub. Couldn’t figure out how to get it done off the pine! Sounds like a merit badge the Pawnee Rangers would give out. Moving to Dallas, he’s surrounded by SO MUCH better talent that he should have no problem falling into comparable numbers as his starting days in Brooklyn, maybe even with a few more dimes, a few less TO, and playing as the starter all year (if he stays glued together). This is likely D-Will’s final chance to be on a winner, and after a very sub-par 14-15 I think he could be a draft day value. Either that or he’ll be a hot spinning cone of meat! Here’s what else has gone on in the past week of fantasy basketball:

There’s some sort of postseason going on, Stephen Curry is flying through the air, Klay Thompson is luckily OK after a Vincent Van Gough scare, there’s only two teams left… but all of that is less exciting to us than the new blood to enter the 2015-16 Fantasy player pool! As we’ve done for the second straight year (is two years considered a tradition yet?!), Slim and I mocked the first round of the 2015 NBA Draft by alternating picks for their respective teams with a fantasy outlook for each rook. 2014 didn’t… um… go quite to plan. But hey! We got a couple right and this year doesn’t quite offer the top-to-bottom talent as 2014. With a little bit more of an even playing field, I have a feeling this Draft will feature even more trades and more surprising risers and fallers… Hopefully we get a good portion of the lottery right! The optimist in me is ready ta go! Here’s our 2015 Mock NBA Draft:

Yikes, after the top 10 things become a hodgepodge of nitpickery! I think I made that word up, but I’m not going to let my creativity wane during the offseason!

After putting out my Way Too Early Top 10 last week, I fought some procrastination and internal debates to get 11-20 down. Fought some ranker’s block! It’s like writer’s block, except I’m a lot less cool than Hank Moody in Californication. Ranker’s block doesn’t score me the Hollywood A-listers! But with a bottle of booze and in a plain black T, I truck forward thanks to the insistence of Runkle. Here’s my Way Too Early Top 20 for the 2015-16 Fantasy Basketball Season:

The 2014-15 Fantasy Basketball season is officially in the books! But we won’t be slowing down too much, with a lot of great off-season content planned and my Way Too Early Ranks for 2015-16 coming in a few weeks…

In 14-15 we had ups (#OccupyDraymondGreen baby!), we’ve had downs (cough, MCW, cough), but what matters most is we had fun I finished better than Slim in the REL league!

And one of the highest of highs from last night was James Harden‘s triple double, going 16/11/10/1/1 in only 27 minutes against the Jazz. Only took 8 shots! That’s what Mel Gibson tried to tell the police anyway… 3-8 FG, 2-5 3PTM, and more of that oh-so-sweet FT volume hitting 8-8 freebies. Assists, rebounds and steals all went up this season, along with the obvious scoring and he was at a career best 8.8-10.2 FT a game entering last night. The TO are brutal, but he also chipped in a career best 0.7 blocks in an absolutely elite year. So I can say with pretty good confidence he’ll be my #1 player for the 2015-16 Fantasy Basketball season. Was durable (81 games this season, 73+ the past 3 years), consistent, and I just love mustache rides. Take me to the promised land in 15-16, Mr. Beard! Here’s what else went down on the final night of 2014-15 Fantasy Basketball:

Fresh off surviving the 2014-15 Razzies with his nomination for worst coach, Brad Stevens only kinda-sorta did something right last night… Yo Brad, how about you have Marcus Smart take some other shots than 3s (1-5 FG with 1-4 3PTM last night)?!

But despite the Celtics’ horrific mismanaging of Smart, Stevens did run Isaiah Thomas a whopping one-more-minute than Smart, and IT2/3 went nuts for 34/3/6 on 10-17 FG (4-8 3PTM 10-11 FT). In a 10-point win, you don’t run IT2/3 over 30 minutes with a +35?! Only got to 29:47 last night, but you’ll take it when he’s at at least 23 Pts, 2 treys and 4 3PTM the past three games. Those are the floors! Other than the %s (he is shooting a ton more though), IT2/3 has really improved since changing into green, and I think that slow start in Phoenix might make him a value next year. IT2/3, the Hoppin’ Leprechaun! That might have to be his full official Razzball nickname… Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy basketball action:

Well, remember about a month ago when the Paul George news seemed more optimistic than the Knicks season outlook?! OK, maybe that’s not too optimistic, but ya know…

Slim and I both maintained you can leave George on your wire in H2H leagues as a stash, and it took until the final Sunday of the H2H championship to get back on the court. So maybe we were wrong! Hah, I doubt anybody in a H2H final was able to stash him that long… PG13 returned from that horrific injury last summer for 13/2/2/2/0 on 5-12 FG (3-6 3PTM). Did have the 3 TO, but man, even the most die-hard Pacers-hater has to be happy to see George back on the court. Obviously in Roto, he’s a must add for this final week plus. That said, played 15 minutes off the bench and I doubt he gets to 30 in the remaining week in a half. Oh yeah, assballs and a bump of coke! Needed to be sure this was legit rated PG-13 for “some language and drug use”. Here’s what else went down over the weekend in fantasy basketball action:

….And we’re back with our regularly scheduled programming! If you missed it yesterday, our polls are open for the 2014-15 Razzies, our prestigious ceremony awarding the best of the best… of terribleness! Larry Drew is like, “Finally! Someone else has to put up with this ish!”

Speaking of putting up with ish, geez navigating all these DNPs is a near impossible chore for championship teams! The finals of the H2H playoffs are often won and lost by waiver fodder, and if you’re in need of some ThrAGNOFfing, Anthony Tolliver is getting some run! Sure most of his stats will make you exclaim with defiance, “please sir, I want s’more!”, but he’s at 3+ treys and 11+ Pts in 3 of the last 4. Got a crazy dose of 40 minutes for 13/10/1/0/0 last night, hitting 4-9 FG (3-7 3PTM 2-2 FT). And like your perfect little ThrAGNOF, he almost never turns it over, with only 2 TO in the past 6 games. 9-catters needing some treys should certainly take a look, and the Pistons have three games in four days – tonight, Friday and Saturday. Threes ain’t got no face! That phrase is so perfectly used here it has got me a little excited in my Dickens. Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy basketball action:

And with Dwight coming back from his knee injury and the precursing news of his return, I have said I wouldn’t add him in virtually any 10 or 12ers. I don’t trust the minutes, and after giving Slim a 19 minutes over/under for Dwight’s return on the Pod, he only went for 16:27 putting up 4/7/2/0/1 with a TO. At least he stayed off the FT line! After we had started the Pod, McHale said he was only giving Dwight 16 minutes, just enough to be sure his TO and FT% wouldn’t hurt fantasy teams. I may have been liberal with McHale’s quote for that last part… In 8-cat or non-FT% leagues I guess he probably should be scooped up, but he’ll probably sit back-to-backs and the Rockets have a pair left on the schedule with Sun/Mon and Wed/Thurs games this upcoming week. Get your sales ready, Big & Tall, we got a bigun needing more street clothes! Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy basketball action:

Woooo, Jimmy Buckets is back! And Tom Thibodeau does what Tom Thibodeau does… Runs his guys to death.

After missing exactly 3 weeks with his elbow injury, Jimmy Butler returned last night and played a ridiculous 39-and-a-half minutes for 19/9/1/0/0. Almost 40 minutes?! And he shot 6-20!? Sure he’s taken a ton of shots the past week to be sure the elbow is healthy, but the aggression in that 7-10 FT really solidifies he should be 100% the rest of the way. That is, until Tibs plays him 63 minutes in a 3-OT game! Sheesh, I gotta wonder if I’ll ever be huge on Bulls again… Derrick Rose and all-a-dat, Joakim Noah goes through injury spells… And Tibs refuses to run his starters on any sort of minutes limits. I’m more posing the thought than really setting any personal beliefs in my fantasy bedrock, but Rose for sure I could never draft. You can call that Fred Flintstone because it’ll make my Fantasy Bedrock! I don’t think I’m using that lyric right… Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy basketball action: